jdw

I think some of us were bouncing around why Trip simply didn't change the Title Tourney into a #1 Contenders Tourney while recognizing Punk was still the champ and Trip tries to clear things up with Punk. From a storyline standpoint since then, Trip clearly recognizes Punk is still the/a champ. He's allowed himself to get stuck with Rey-to-Cena as a champ as well, and made a title vs title match to clear things up and create an "undisputed champion". But the only reason there's a "disputed champion" is because Trip didn't pull the plug on the tourney. Since Trip was in change before the Finals of the tourney, he certainly could have pulled the plug on it, or changed it. John

How is that not vacating the title? In a Kayfabe sense the only thing Vince did wrong was not wait thirty days or at least a week. Punk considered himself the champ. From Punk's perspective in the storyline, he was going to win the title from Cena and leave with the title. Go back and read Matt's Montreal Manifesto. So Punk *didn't* vacate the title. He didn't give it up. In fact, we all were laughing our assess off at it sitting in his frig, and him taking it to Wrigley. Vince *stripped* the title from Punk. He was never going to mention the turd's name again, and was going to crown a new champ. Stan Hansen didn't vacate the title in 1986. Verne stripped him of it and gave it to Nick. Flair didn't vacate the title in 1991. Herd stripped him of it, and had Barry and Lex wrestle over it. Hogan didn't vacate the title in 1991. Tunney stripped him of it and put it up for grabs at the Rumble. It never made sense or logic to it. It was something the writers came up with to be lazy. That's kind of what people are saying about the tourney: It didn't make a damn but of sense. It didn't have any logic to it. It was just something Creative came up with because the lazy and a bunch of fucking idiots/doufusses. John

He said he was taking the belt with him. Which he did. Exactly. Vince didn't consider it vacated. He considered Punk an ungrateful turd, and took the "title" away from him. If Punk gave it back, he would have vacated it. "I have a message from the Raw General Manager..." -Michael Cole John

Did he? Sunday: Punk wins Title. Monday: Punk does various stunts with Title (baseball game? Frig?) Monday Evening: Vince strips Punk of title Monday Evening: Vince puts on Tourney I don't think there is any account of Punk vacating the title before Vince's decision to hold a tourney. If he wanted to vacate it, he wouldn't have taken off with it... not put it in his frig... or kept carrying it around until he came back. In fact, when he came back he was claiming to be the champ. The general storyline was that Vince said Punk wasn't the champ anymore since Vince has the power to do it (his company after all), and decide to create a new house champ. In the storyline, Punk never stopped claiming he was the champ, and clearly is claiming to be champ heading into SummerSlam. So there is WWE storyline "logic" for the tourney, but not due to it being vacated. I think people's problems with the tourney is that it was just a dumbass storyline to do from start to finish to epilogue. Russo can explain the "logic" behind some of his storyline decisions. Doesn't mean that the decision/choice wasn't a bad one. John

It wasn't wrestling boards that shamed me into doing it. Sports boards were what finally made me figure out how that quoting function worked. Which annoyed people more: my usnet quoting, or Frank's hard return newspaper style short sentences? John

jdw = ? Same with any of the handles. So I've also put my name at the end. A new poster get's that it's John. Old habit. Probably one I'm not going to break. Be thankful I've given up the old usenet form of quoting text. John

That. Along with most of the rest of the post as well. John

After reading that, it's time to get Bruce Prichard onto the WON HOF ballot. John

I'm known to be meanspirited, so that was a joke. John

I look forward to watching people twist themselves into a pretzel to "explain" the first time Punk rolls over and does what the WWE wants in a storyline that makes him look bad. John

That's rather meanspirited and stuff. John

I take it he was working in the angle, pulling one over on people? John

MKJ? John

They haven't had depth for years. Doesn't mean they wouldn't suspend him if he continually refuses to proform. Nor at a certain point fire him if he doesn't do what they want. We don't see it much before people don't refuse. When we typically set it, drugs are the reason. John

So Punk is the new Shawn who will say no to anything he doesn't like and get away with it. Somehow... I'm not buying that. Nor as good as Punk as with his money (allegedly), he is also a smart guy who knows that he isn't going to be in his profession at the age of 50, nor likely raking in good income at that point unless it's off investments that he's built up off what he makes in his prime money making days, i.e. now. You say he signed the contract because he valued "secure main event slot". He's not going to piss away that value by saying "no" if the company really wants him to do something, no matter how stupid it is. Punk is going to end up closer to Rock and Cena than any of his fans want to admit. At a certain point, especially after getting himself "established" as a regular top of the card guy, he's just going to sit back and let the company do whatever it wants, not get stressed out about it, and cash the check. Then try to play the next contract extension for another round of good cash. John

And get suspended without pay. Or eventually get fired. Given he signed the contract, it would appear that Punk values WWE cash, and his own potential short term earnings, more than folks thought. John

To be clear, I think the focus on alternative sources for AJPW in 1997-99 would/should be: * Carny Series * RWTL Series * complete versions of Big Matches I think most of the last item has been figured out by people like Ditch, but there are a couple of items probably to keep an eye out. I think Ditch referenced one Tag Title match that was JIP on TV but a full Sammy version didn't turn up. It's worth eyeballing an NTV satellite list (whenever it gets put together) to see if it's on there. Carny and RWTL are obvious places where original NTV doesn't cover things well or in complete fashion in 1997-1999, similar to 1996. I think everyone saw in the 1996 Yearbook the bonus of having Sammy for finding non-Usual Suspects matches. 1997-99 are very similar. Taking 1997, for example, one would want to check on these two cards: 11/23/97 Miyagi Sports Center (NTV Only?) 1. Steve Williams & Gary Albright beat Barry Windham & Justin Bradshaw (12:35) 2. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue beat Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki (18:09) 3. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama beat Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace (29:50) 11/27/97 Nakajima Sports Center (NTV Only?) 1. Steve Williams & Gary Albright beat Stan Hansen & Bobby Duncum Jr. (18:53) 2. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue drew Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace (30:00) 3. Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama beat Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki (21:34) Those are off a RWTL list I put together more than half a decade ago, looking at NTV, Sammy and commercial tape lists available *then*. I've never bothered to scan tape lists since then the see if complete versions have popped up anywhere. Obviously complete versions of the top two matches on those two cards are pretty much what the yearbooks are all about. Ditch probably knows if Sammy versions of them turned up, or if there looks like there's a gap in Sammy that perhaps Dan could go hunting for fill-ins. But it's also an area to eyeball the NTV satellite for. Carny is similar. My recollection is that there's a fair amount of 1998 Carny out there. Anyway, it's probably a reason to load 1997-99 into the back end of the Yearbook process. With all the WCW and WWF and ECW material, it's going to be a heck of a set to boil down. John

Semen Punk is great. John

Dave only watched the NTV AJPW 30 show. Dan has mentioned this in the past on CrazyMax. I think we've talked about the Sammy stuff in the yearbook threads as something that needs to be sifted through. The NTV satellite stuff hasn't been fully matchlisted, and last time it came up in a conversation with Dan, I believe it was still on his list to track down. Wouldn't get the hopes up that the NTV satellite churns out much of interest beyond the commercial tapes, Sammy and NTV AJPW 30. The exceptions to that general rule would be Carny and the RWTL if they taped any cards that didn't end up on the other outlets. That might pick up a match between top teams that didn't wash up on the other outlets. John

Depends on how one defines great, but Hogan 1 is a pretty tough one to beat on impact. We talked about expansion a lot, to the point that we spun it off into a thread where Kris dropped a ton of results and there was some going over the amount of "population growth" they added to the old WWF territory by going national. John

And Mike... don't read the above as a head drop. I know you're not saying that Misawa wasn't the clear Ace above Kawada and Kobashi. My note was more aimed at the original commentator who said "equal". John

Kawada pinned Misawa in big tags in 1995 and 1996. It's not the same as a singles win. He beat Misawa in a singles match in 1997... after sitting on his ass while Kobashi took Misawa to the wall in a 30:00 draw right before that. Not the same as a *real* singles win. Kawada did beat him at the Dome. He did take the belt from him again in 1/99, but from a *booking* standpoint that wasn't being booked "equal" to Misawa. The TC was jobbed to Kawada so that he could put over Vader so that Misawa could challenge for the TC at the Dome. In other words, Kawada was a bridge to get the TC onto Vader so that the bigger guy (Misawa) would have the shot at the Dome. Then later in the year Misawa cleaned Kawada's clock again... and took the win heading out of AJPW as well. Kawada was *never* booked as an equal to Misawa. He was always chasing. Even when given the optics of being on the same level, it was quickly corrected. Kobashi was never booked "equal" to Misawa until 2000, and even then it wasn't fully delivered: Misawa probably had another six months to a year to make it clear that Kobashi was the new Ace, and that Jun was Kenta's new rival for the top spot. He didn't get there until 2003 because of (i) that split form AJPW, and (ii) Kobashi getting hurt. If people want "equal booking", look to New Japan. All Japan under Baba wasn't that: he flat out wouldn't allow it as he wanted a clear Ace. Under Misawa, there simply wasn't the time: 1999 was largely booked to be consistent with Babaism, and 2000 saw his plans interupted by the split and needing to reset in a new promotion. John

Link? John

I'd watch them back-to-back before ranking it ahead of Super Brawl. I don't recall the Bash match having close to the level of passion, and frankly thought it was pretty disappointing given the talent involved. Not exactly bad, but just felt like it was "there" rather than a match filled with the hate you wanted out of a Dangerous Alliance match. John